Jim Berardi, out of Alliance, Ohio, looks at some flint arrowheads Sunday while collection owner Eric Wagner answers questions. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

CHURCHTOWN — The Wolf Creek Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio held a Native American artifact show Sunday at the Knights of Columbus building in Churchtown.

It featured a variety of displays made up of artifacts from all over North America that included arrowheads, jewelry, grooming items, and more.

Eric Wagner has an extensive collection he’s been adding to for years that includes flint arrowheads found locally, a comb made of bone found in Oregon, and a necklace crafted out of bird bones and bear claws.

“Every piece is unique, it’s not like coin collection,” Wagner said. “Everything is subjective.”

Wagner said this area is full of artifacts from every era of human history.

A bone necklace, made from bird bones, with a bear claw pendant was on display at the Knights of Columbus building in Churchtown Sunday. The piece is part of a collection by Paul Diertz, from Beverly, Ohio, and was found in Washington County Ohio. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

“Every culture was in this area,” Wagner said. “From paleo right on up to woodland.

The public was also invited to bring items for help identifying and possibly appraising them. Jim Berardi said he drove in from Alliance, Ohio to see some of the things on display.

“I haven’t been to a show in like, 14 years,” Berardi said.

Berardi said he’s a collector himself and he brought a few pieces of his own collection to share. That included a banner stone and a stone pipe he said he found in 1997. Berardi said his collection began with helping his father in the garden.

“I was nine years old when I found my first arrowhead. I was helping my dad till the garden, holding the tomato plants back,” Berardi said. “And I saw it and picked it up. And when he got through with the row he said, “What do you got in your hand?’ and I said, ‘I think it’s an arrowhead.'”

Eric Wagner, right, talks to Steve Somerville of Vienna, W.Va. Sunday about some of the Native American artifacts Somerville has collected. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

Berardi said he would find some in high school while hunting or checking his trout line. He said by the time he graduated he had eight to 10 pieces he had found.

“When I was checking my traps I saw all this flint in a field and thought, ‘I’m going to go back there when the snow melts off in the spring’,” Berardi said. “So as soon as the snow melted off in March, I went back and in like, two hours, I found nine good ones and 20 broken ones in this field, and I was hooked.”

Berardi said he’s gotten friends to go with him over the years and they all have collections of their own now. He said he likes to go 15 to 20 times a year but health concerns have been keeping him from going more frequently lately. He also said he doesn’t sell the things he finds, and what attracts him the most to artifact hunting is the mystery of the objects he finds and the connection it gives him to American history.

“You think about what it was like when the person made this, or when they lost this, when their very survival depended on these things,” Berardi said. “It’s the unknown, and the fact that your a part of history, American history, that’s the part that draws me in.”

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com